Conferences

This weekend, two intrepid students from Global Kids' In School Youth program took the long subway ride out from the International Arts Business School at the Wingate campus in Flatbush to the New York Hall of Science in Queens to participate in the annual Maker Faire.

They marveled at extravagant Lego creations and robots of all shapes and functions, checked out the life-sized mouse trap and the boxcar derby, and drank fruit smoothies. They also engaged those passing through NYC Hive's section of the Young Makers tent in interactive "choose your own adventure" storytelling using the platform Twine.

Clayderman and Deion began the story:

You wake up on a beach by your home. You see some driftwood and a metal bat. Which do you choose to pick up, the metal bat or the driftwood?

From there, each Maker Faire attendee who stopped by added a passage and a link or two to the story. By the end of the day, the tale included playing softball with coconuts, talking fish, and snapping turtles. Check it out here. Be prepared: it is very much a rough cut and there are some broken links -- none of the Makers at the event wanted to end the story!

Deion from GK's ISY program helps two Maker Faire attendees add their passage to the interactive story.

For ten weeks, Global Kids is hosting intern Ebba Minas, an 18-year-old from Stockholm, Sweden on a gap year between secondary school and university. She had the opportunity to participate in That Could Be Your Sister, last week's event co-hosted with Radio Rookies, during which youth designed digital tools to combat sexual cyberbullying. Below, read her impressions of the event and her comparisons between conversations around "slut-shaming" in the US and Sweden.

GK intern Ebba Minas (on the right) prepping for her group's presentation.
Photo by Yasmeen Khan of SchoolBook, see article.

This past Saturday June 2nd, I attended Emoti-Con for the first time. As the new Global Kids OLP Intern, I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect but by the end of the day, I was left in awe. I left the convention thinking the future is in good hands.

This event brought together students from various Middle Schools as well as High Schools to present projects they have spent months upon months working on. Just walking around I saw projects that tackled many different aspects such as Women’s Rights, bullying, discrimination, and underdevelopment. These young students combined creativity, knowledge and a passion for change to produce, what I thought to be, mind- blowing creations.

Team Arrive presents their project to a panel of judges

A number of projects presented had a focus on technology and how to use technology or digital media to positively impact society. I was impressed when one student wrote songs and raps about the negative perception of women by society while another student wrote poems about being labeled based on her race and physical appearance. One group of students chose to create a solar powered ice cream machine, which was aimed to tackle environment issues. They brought to the floor new and creative ideas.

Students from Cooper Hewitt pitching their project to judges and other students

Global Kids will be presenting at the 2012 Global Education Conference, which takes place online from November 12-17. One of the best things about this conference is that it’s entirely virtual and free, which makes it incredibly accessible and allows for a globally connected experience.

"The conference seeks to present ideas, examples, and projects that help connect educators and classrooms, with a strong emphasis on promoting global awareness, fostering global competency, and inspiring action towards solving real–world problems. It is our hope that attendees will challenge themselves and others to become more active citizens of the world. Let us learn, question, create, and engage in meaningful, authentic opportunities within a global context!” -From GEC Website

This year, GEC, recognizing that games-based learning is a hot educational topic, has partnered with BrainPOP, a creator of animated educational videos, to develop a new gaming strand for the conference to highlight games within a global education context.

Global Kids’ session will take place on Thursday, November 12, 3pm-4pm EST on the following topic:

Brianna explained what geocaching was and their process of coming up with difference electorial issues to highlight within the game. She also encouraged the Grantmakers to experience a mini-scavenger hunt during the reception and gave sticker prizes to those who completed the task.

This past June brought us Emoti-Con! 2012 Digital Youth Media Festival. Check out below two short videos showcasing the design challenge and the competition presentations that happened over the course of the day.

Yesterday, three Global Kids youth leaders and 3 other youth from around the country presented at Games For Change, talking about what they learned as winners or creators of national game design competitions.

The youth had taken part in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, The National STEM Video Game Challenge, and the AMD Social Impact Game Design Challenges. Below is the slide we used describing and contrasting the three:

We were originally placed in a room seating 20. This was a problem, no less so than the youth panelists and their chaprerones took up nearly all of the seats. After some coordinating we were moved across the hall and filled the room with over 50 people. Photos can be viewed here and below are some of the twitter posts:

Global Kids youth leaders from Create to Learn will present their game at the 9th Games for Change Festival this coming Wednesday June 20th. Create to Learn is a program in which middle school girls design a game for teaching math to their 6th grader peers. The youth leaders will be presenting as part of the Game for Learning Institute Expo at Greenberg Lounge (NYU Law School). During these past months the girls have been working on creating a game called Nine Lives, a game of rescue of a princess (or prince) depending on the player's choice. The player must go through a forest and defeat the dragons by answering math games that are thrown as fire balls.

We hope that if you are attending Games for Change this year, you will stop by and see the work the girls have created. If you do, you will be able to engage them and see for yourself how versed they have become in the vernacular of game design. They will speak to you about iteration (you might want to ask them about versions), about prototype, about testing, about characters, about coming up with ideas, and brainstorming.

Stop by, talk to them, and see how game design has become part of their vocabulary.

Last Saturday, 100 tweens, teens and educators from across NYC gathered at Parsons The New School for Design for the 4th Annual Emoti-Con! digital media and technology festival. Throughout the day, youth showcased their digital creations, networked with their peers and industry professionals, competed for prizes, and engaged in a dialogue about the role of digital media and technology in their lives now and looking ahead to the future.

About Global Kids

Global Kids, Inc. - the premier non-profit educational organization for global learning and youth development - works to ensure that urban youth have the knowledge, skills, experiences and values they need to succeed in school, participate effectively in the democratic process, and achieve leadership in their communities and on the global stage.

About OLP

The Global Kids Online Leadership Program (OLP) integrates a youth development approach and international and public policy issues into youth media programs that build digital literacy, foster substantive online dialogues, develop resources for educators, and promote civic participation.